“Honey, where’s the pencil sharpener?”

“It’s in the left cabinet, on one of the shelves.”

“Are you sure?”

“Unless you moved it!”

“No, I didn’t move it, but I don’t see it, and sometimes-”

“Oh, move out of the way. Look, here it is.

“Why are you so bad at seeing things?”

I wish I knew. It might help me sort things out.

I like writing raw. I enjoy just letting the story out, engrassing myself in my own imagnation and scribbling down the details from the grimy recesses of my mind. I notice the sickly grunts of a great beast, and the quickening of the heart, the taste of copper when anger suffuses the face with blood, the horrible feeling of being ripped apart, inside or out. I eat up the visceral details, the strange analogies and odd observations, and I can see my own story as plain as day.

Unfortunately, though, I miss the bigger things sometimes. There is an action or detail, a very important one, that I miss, and then my story doesn’t make sense. This happens all of the time. I recently made a flying pig lift a man by grabbing him.

…

WITH WHAT? HOOVES?

Needless to say, I had to make some changes. I worked on that story for months without noticing that detail. My mind tends to focus on adrenaline, quirks, themes, and idea, and it will keep those forever. The actual details that paint an important part of the picture are hit and miss.
The solution? Edit.

Some people may not have the same problem I have. It might be a grammar thing. Or a forgetfulness of names. Perhaps an issue with dialogue. (I have those too) Whatever the case, I simply lament the fact that I can’t just churn out pages of a book like I did this blog post.

Even if, like me, churning out raw material has its flaws, I would highly recommend writing without pause. Get into that story and write what you see. A fresh read later will tell you what you missed.